Chapter 1 The Mechanical Hums of the Ark

The Ark giant ship roared with machinery, its ten-thousand-year-old steel shell slowly unfolding under the impetus of powerful mechanical arms. The city within the ship, closely adhering to the inner wall of the spherical shell, gradually revealed itself in this magnificent transformation. As the spaceship's shell slowly split into a dozen arc-shaped components and extended to both sides, the ancient city within the ship also disintegrated, adjusting its posture steadily in the air and falling towards the sea under the maintenance of the artificial gravity system. The huge structures at both ends of the Ark now touched the water, occupying both ends of the city and eventually transforming into two sea islands connected to the city. On one island was the magnificent Ancestral Furnace—the central reactor, and on the other was a series of spectacular steel towers: these towers were once called the Giants' Noses, and they were the atmospheric control center of the city within the ship.

During the entire process of the Ark's shell unfolding, everyone held their breath—the power generated by such a huge mechanical activity was astonishing. The residents of the city within the ship had to rely on the cooperation of hundreds of safety systems to ensure their safety. If there was even the slightest malfunction in the unfolding process, countless people would be placed in life-threatening danger. From here, Hao Ren could even see the crowds moving about in the Ark's city: these Ark people, who had been isolated for thousands of years, were facing a cataclysmic change, a change far beyond their worldview's comprehension. Even with Lawrence's guidance and the manifestation of the Icefire Twin Goddesses, they could not calmly face the cracking of the earth beneath their feet, the overturning of heaven and earth, and the reorganization of the universe. In this earth-shattering change, people were panicked and chaotic. Some knelt down and prayed piously, some hid in their houses trembling and waiting for everything to end, and some simply closed their eyes, waiting for the judgment of fate as if the end of the world had come. And above this entire chaotic city, Hao Ren saw a swirling cloud and countless violent, leaping lightning.

He was stunned for a moment before realizing that the dark clouds and lightning were all created by Vivian—she was probably using these "miracles" to divert the Ark people's attention. By creating the illusion that divine power was driving the heavens and the earth, she could somewhat reassure the common people about the changes in the Ark. As an old-fashioned vampire who had personally experienced the age of mythology, Vivian knew this very well.

Iva was also blankly "watching" the scene before her. Although it was impossible to determine exactly how she perceived the outside world, Hao Ren still habitually assumed that she was "watching." When the steel egg gradually unfolded into a city, Iva seemed restless, and when Hao Ren told her about the situation facing the Ark society, she began to think.

In Iva's fragmented memories, she vaguely retained the concepts of "spaceship" and "Ark." She knew that the sirens had created similar things, and she knew what it meant for a race to face the end of the world. She watched the steel egg open, revealing a dilapidated and almost ruined city, and seemed to understand what Hao Ren was saying. However, she said nothing, just stirred up a wave in place, and then suddenly disappeared into the water.

Katerina looked at the place where Iva disappeared in surprise: "What's wrong with her?"

Hao Ren didn't understand what was going on either: "I don't know... I just told her that the people on the Ark lacked food and clothing and wanted her to accept them."

A look of nervousness immediately appeared on Katerina's face: "Could she be angry?"

In the siren queen's mind, Iva, as the spirit of the race, held a pivotal position, and she had to pay close attention to Iva's every action.

"It shouldn't be... she doesn't seem that petty," Hao Ren was also a little confused, but he didn't think Iva would throw a tantrum because of these alien visitors. "She seems to be very far away. I can't sense her from here."

"Maybe she just left for a moment and will be back soon," Nangong Wuyue guessed. But since Iva was the spirit of this sea area, no one could control her actions or fathom the mind of an ocean soul, so there was no way to find her back at this time. As Nangong Wuyue's voice fell, a melodious, cloud-piercing long鸣 (ming - cry, sound) came from the Ark giant ship.

The original interstellar spaceship had now completely changed its appearance. After the shell was unfolded, the main part of the starship city became a floating, roughly rectangular island on the sea. The structure of the city also underwent a major shift and division during the unfolding of the spherical shell. Now its ground was decomposed and reorganized like a checkerboard. A large number of connecting bridges and metal plates, originally hidden deep underground, rose from the newly appeared cracks in the earth, re-dividing the city structure and strengthening the stability of this "floating island." From a distance, Hao Ren saw considerable chaos in the city, with even some areas having fires and smoke rising—over the past millennia, the Ark residents had made significant modifications to the city. Although most of the buildings were repaired and built on the original foundation, there were also those areas that were completely re-planned. If such buildings happened to straddle the deformation mechanism, the consequences during the Ark's unfolding could be imagined.

In addition, there were those later-added lines, pipes, and mechanical facilities, all of which should have suffered huge damage in such a deformation process.

But all of this was within Lawrence's plan—and he had also taken measures to allow the Ark residents to avoid the "seam areas" that would be affected by the deformation mechanism in advance. The original city plan of the Ark city had considered the situation of the shell opening one day. All the main roads and urban area distribution were divided according to the deformation mechanism. Even after thousands of years, these obvious divisions were still easy to identify. Lawrence spent a long time popularizing this knowledge to the residents, and before the deformation began, he also asked Vivian to use "miracles" to disperse those residents who were unwilling to migrate and take refuge (mostly vagrants living in the wilderness). Therefore, although the damage to the buildings was serious, the casualties should have been reduced to a minimum.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before Lawrence sent a communication: "The Ark's deformation has been completed. Thank you for your assistance."

"How are things in the city?" Hao Ren temporarily put aside the matter of Iva and asked about the situation on Lawrence's side.

"Everything is proceeding according to plan," Lawrence nodded. Judging from the picture on the communicator, he should be near the Ancestral Furnace at the moment. "All the buildings in the docking areas have collapsed, but they are all simple shacks, and some machines have fallen into the gaps in the deformation mechanism, but we have two hundred years to clean up these things. The biggest problem is the royal city of the Tower Kingdom. A section of this 'city's' city wall happened to be on the edge of the deformation mechanism, and there was a very serious collapse, but because of the timely evacuation, there were no casualties."

As he said this, the old man suddenly smiled: "At least this way we know what to do next: build houses first."

Hao Ren smiled along with him, then his expression became serious: "What about the chaos among the people?"

"The chaos is as expected," Lawrence shook his head. "But at least no one is shouting about the end of the world. The nobles and soldiers have not disappointed me this time. They are trying to restore order, and the Ice and Fire Twin Goddesses are an important part of rebuilding order. I hope to establish a new religion, a group that transcends the four-kingdom system and worships the Icefire Goddesses, to replace the chaotic beliefs and spiritual groups in the current Ark society."

"That's great," Hao Ren felt it was interesting as soon as he heard this. "Vivian doesn't need to be mentioned, but Lily will definitely agree first. She can't wait to join in the fun..."

Before Hao Ren could finish speaking, a huge wave of sound suddenly came from the distance, interrupting him!

The sound of the huge waves was like muffled thunder, and like a tsunami rushing in. Hao Ren turned his head in astonishment, and the scene on the horizon shocked him: a mountain-like wave was rushing towards them. It looked like just a bright line at first, but in the blink of an eye, it had already surged to the front, like a magnificent wall reaching the sky and the earth, rushing towards the Ark fleet with astonishing momentum!

Lawrence also saw the giant wave coming from the distance on a high ground in the Ark city, and he was immediately shocked: "What is that?! A natural phenomenon of this planet?!"

Having grown up on the Ark, he was not very clear about what was in front of him.

"It seems to be a wave... not a natural product!" Hao Ren instantly judged that the rapidly speeding wave was strange. He immediately calculated the impact this wave might have on the Ark, and at the same time, a thought popped into his mind, "Could it be Iva?!"

The sudden surge of monstrous waves shocked everyone. Hao Ren even subconsciously thought that Iva was throwing a tantrum. He immediately jumped into the sea to try to establish contact with the latter, but Iva's spiritual focus was clearly not here, and his attempt received no response. And in these chaotic few minutes, the giant wave had already surged to the edge of the Ark fleet!

However, it then suddenly weakened, rapidly shrinking and disappearing at a speed visible to the naked eye, unnaturally turning into a patch of fine spray in the blink of an eye. And behind this patch of spray, the things carried by the giant wave were finally exposed to everyone, and everyone looked at each other after seeing those things.

It was a stretch of green seaweed, interspersed with various strange marine plants, tangled together in large patches, as if messy balls of yarn were washed up next to the Throne Ark by the waves.

The broken waves around the seaweed quickly gathered together, slowly forming a transparent female image. This female image continued to grow bigger and taller, seemingly in order to be able to "talk to the city," and she finally grew to hundreds of meters high. Then she pushed the messy things like seaweed next to the city, making a loud splashing sound: "Splish, splash."

Hao Ren finally heard Iva's voice again. She was just excitedly repeating a word: "Food, food, food~~"